“Oh my God,” Arne Feuerhahn said to his companion. Peering through binoculars from a hill overlooking a fjord north of Reykjavík, they watched as workers at the whaling station there used a steam-powered winch to haul ashore the massive body of a male fin whale. At first, they saw two harpoons piercing the whale, then they noticed two more: one in its head, two in its side, and one deep in the animal’s belly.

Feuerhahn, an activist and founder of the marine conservation nonprofit Hard to Port, says he’s observed more than 60 Icelandic fin whale landings but until that summer day had never seen a whale struck by more than two harpoons. It was